


Sebastian 14:38

by Blacktablet (Ishamaeli)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alley Sex, Angst, Bloodplay, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Murder Husbands, POV Sebastian Moran, Power Dynamics, Present Tense, Religious Content, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:31:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishamaeli/pseuds/Blacktablet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian Moran has never believed in God, and he stops believing in men when he is fourteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sebastian 14:38

**Author's Note:**

> Deuteronomy 12:23 contains the phrase "blood is the life"; the title of this fic is therefore a pune (or a play on words). Thanks to wilthepony for looking this over for me and straightening out a few clunky sentences. <3

Sebastian Moran has never believed in God, and he stops believing in men when he is fourteen.

Before this, he believed in his father, who worked at the Russian consulate in Edinburgh, and he believed in his brother Yakov, who played rugby in college and called him Seva. Maybe Sebastian believed in his mother, too, in the way he recalls her Scottish accent soothed his childish fears before she turned into a memory of his father’s drawn face and his brother telling him in a teary voice that everything would be okay.

He eventually stops believing in men because men are fallible; what is fallible will bleed, and what bleeds must die. This he learns when he is fourteen and his brother is home for the holidays and shoots their father in the face with a hunting rifle before pointing the barrel at himself.

The salt of Yakov’s blood stings in his eyes.

 

000

 

Although the psychologist who did his evaluation when he joined the army was worried about his prevalence towards power, any kind of power, he has never been bothered by it. It’s not about holding someone else’s life in his hands, as prosaic as that would sound, but much simpler; Sebastian likes the power to do things he is good at. Only, everyone else gets to realise that they've been dealt bad cards in life when Sebastian discovers just _what_ it is that he is good at.

He recognises power when he sees it, too, even if it looks unassuming in a white tee and a pair of worn jeans, right up until the point he presses it against a crumbling brick wall and it bites his lower lip till he bleeds.

“I don’t usually do this,” he says stupidly and mouths at the faint stubble on the pale skin of the man’s neck, leaves smears of red behind. “Not my style.” During the years he spent in the army, perhaps, but not anymore.

“Honey,” the man drawls and pulls back and looks up at Sebastian with black eyes that glitter with something as cold as distant starlight. “I’ll _show_ you style.”

Later Sebastian sits on the ground leaning on the same wall, catching his breath, and half-heartedly listens in on the conversation that the other man is having on a sleek black mobile. He looks oddly professional, all efficient movements and focused attention, and nothing to betray the fact that less than ten minutes ago he fucked himself on Sebastian’s cock like he owned it.

“It’s me,” he says with a lilt that wasn’t there before. “Can you handle it?”

Sebastian sighs and gives his crushed cigarettes a mildly forlorn look. They didn’t survive the encounter in his jeans pocket – ‘ _Good, that’s what I like to hear’_ – and Sebastian decides that unless he feels like moving, which he doesn’t, he ought to forget the post-coital smoke that he currently craves. Which, of course, is precisely the moment that the shorter man tosses him an unopened pack of cigarettes without even sparing a glance, intent on the phone conversation, and flicks his fingers in a gesture that says _hurry up_ when he hesitates.

Sebastian checks the brand and is not surprised to discover that it’s his usual. Since he is pretty good at theoretical philosophy, logic included, and has the patience of a snake waiting to strike, he does some serious thinking while he fiddles the plastic wrap open.

The man finally ends his call. “Something amusing you, Moran?” he asks in a deceptively sweet tone, head tilted to the side and eyes on Sebastian.

He wipes the traces of a satisfied smile off his face and gets up from the grimy alley. Seemingly in no hurry, he pulls a fag out of the pack with his teeth, lights it, studies the other man through a hazy film of smoke. “‘S nothing, boss,” he finally murmurs, and the grin he gets in response is nothing short of incandescent.

 

000

 

_Blood is the life._

He remembers that part of the Scripture not because he believes in God, but because even if the fact that Jim exists wasn’t enough to convince him that God doesn’t, the feeling of the brilliant man whispering directions in his ear, breath hot and urgent, leaves no doubt about it. Teeth close on the skin of Sebastian’s neck simultaneously with his finger squeezing the trigger, and there is only Jim. Sebastian needs nothing else because Jim points him like a weapon and gives him _purpose_.

It’s about the thin trickle of blood from the corner of a mouth, the spray of perfect red pearls from a severed artery, and the fact that Sebastian is the cause. Sometimes Jim licks the blood off Sebastian, other times tells him to be careful of the Westwood when he kneels in worship and turns his face into the heat like a mindless beast.

By not believing in God, he has found something better.

 

000

 

This is what Sebastian Moran, thirty-eight years old, with a pool of dark blood and brain matter coagulating at his feet, tells himself: what is fallible will bleed, and what bleeds must die.


End file.
